I'm insane - but it was worth it

This picture pretty much sums up our Thanksgiving dinner - the kids were banished to the kitchen while we enjoyed a nice dinner, until we realized that Hunter was enjoying his own Thanksgiving dinner, courtesy of Avery throwing it to him. He had some turkey, peas, potatoes, roll, I'm sure Avery even thoughtfully dropped some sparking apple juice for him to wash it all down with.

At some point over dinner I casually mentioned that the outlet mall located about half an hour away was going to open at 11 that night to start their Black Friday madness. Bethany and my mom immediately decided that there was no way we were going to miss it. I was somewhat hesitant because I had planned on hitting Toys'R'Us at 5 am - a first ever for me. I calculated exactly how much sleep I would need and decided, what the heck. Some of the stores were opening at 9, some at 10 and then the rest at 11. I had heard that last year it was so crazy that people were actually parking on the freeway and jumping over the fence. We left my house at 9:00 (Bethany, her Ben, my mom and I) and made it into our first store by 10:15. It was insane. There were people lined up outside store that weren't open yet. The line just to check out at Gap took us almost 45 minutes. I was able to get one thing that James had asked for super cheap, as well as some other great deals. It was crazy how many kids were there. We finally left around 12:30 and I got home by 1:30.

This is when I had to make a decision. I was planning on picking my friend up at 4:30. I still had to make a list, and do a couple of other things before I was ready so I decided rather than get 2 hours of sleep I would just stay up. I cleaned the kitchen, folded the laundry, got a little weirded out by the quiet and drank a bunch of Dr. Pepper.

So as I said before, I have never done the whole super early, Black Friday deal. I expected to see long lines of people waiting to get in the store but this was ridiculous. It was even crazier inside. My best buddy Shauna was with me so we split up for a bit. I am so glad she was there because while I was in line in the video game section she went to grab the Speed Racer helmet that James had asked for. She managed to get the very last one, fighting two people over it. I wish I could have seen it! So we only had one cart that was packed to overflowing, we also had a skateboarding ramp chilling on the bottom of the cart that made it difficult to steer. We had to wait another hour in line just to check out. I wish I had a picture of us trying to push this cart around, and a picture of us almost losing everything in the parking lot, and one of the back of my car. Next year I'll bring a camera.

I got home at 9:30 to this:
Ben has built a lot of forts in the 6 years we've been married but this was the most elaborate. He even used the kitchen table. The kids had apparently played in it for hours. While they were playing he mopped the kitchen floor which was awesome because it is the one thing I strongly dislike. And to add to his awesomeness he let me take a 5 hour nap! All in all it was a greatly productive and exhausting day but definitely worth it, considering how much money I saved. Now I need these kids to go to bed early tonight so I can catch up on sleep!